


How Deep Is Your Love?

by LaSordide



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Art, California, House Music, Los Angeles, M/M, Romance, Surfing, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-22 21:20:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaSordide/pseuds/LaSordide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(A story in which joy is expressed in waves, and surfing is an obvious gift of the cosmos.)</p><p>Another of my love letters to a place with our boys getting all romantic on each other - and some gay sex, a little art history, and NYC Indie rock thrown in. *Sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1.

 

 _Burst pipe_ , Eames will think later, and chuckle. _Burst pipe_ is about to become his secret catch phrase for _all is right with the world_.

 

++++

 

It’s 9 AM on a Saturday morning. Eames isn’t normally up at 9 AM on a Saturday morning, but – he wasn’t feeling it last night, didn’t end up going out on the prowl with Si and Cheri to London House night over at King King like he normally would, and didn’t stay up to the wee hours working on a painting or pulling a print. He caught up on some apparently much needed sleep instead, and thus is up at a normal human hour today.

 

Up in time to watch a sheet of water cascading into his tub from a visibly widening rent in the ceiling.

 

“Bloody fucking hell,” he says to himself.

 

He heaves himself up the staircase of his charming Arts & Crafts era condo in Silver Lake to the door of the guy who lives in the flat above him, the source of all that sudden water. The man Eames thinks of as Corporate Barrister Guy, the one he sees on occasion in the condo’s carpark, getting into his BMW in a sharply tailored suit, hair slicked back, looking rather grim and impenetrable.

 

They’ve nodded to one another in the past, normally in the early AM, when Eames is slinking home from fun and Mr. Corporate is apparently heading out to work, already putting out fires over his iPhone 5, balancing it and his jacket and his briefcase and his keys and a cup of coffee in his hands while he tries to fight his way into his car. They’ve lived on top of each other for over a year now and have never shared a word between them; Eames doesn’t even know the guy’s name, but – he guesses they’re in for a hell of an introduction now.

 

Eames bangs on the flat’s door like his fist’s a battering ram, no mistaking that this is something that needs to be dealt with this moment. He figures the guy’s in the shower, he won’t want to come out, so he keeps banging.

 

“Ok ok ok,” he hears from beyond the door, “Jesus.” Mr. Corporate opens up, sopping wet, nothing but a towel around his hips, looks at Eames who’s still just in his pyjama bottoms, and says, ready for a fight, “ _Problem_?”

 

“Your shower, mate,” Eames says, raising himself to his full height in light of the other guy’s clearly annoyed face. If Corporate wants to bring it, Eames won’t hesitate to step up. “Your shower’s leaking a tsunami into my bathroom, yeah? I think maybe you’ve a burst pipe.”

 

“Oh,” the guy says, suddenly not nearly so pissed off, “oh, shit – shit, sorry about that. Here, come in, come in.”

 

Eames follows him into the bathroom, briefly taking in the guy’s flat and – it’s a surprise, really. Nothing like what he expected in the brief moments he’d spent considering Mr. Corporate in the past.

 

“The water’s off now, obviously, so – hopefully it’s stopped flooding your place,” the guy is saying, snapping Eames’ attention away from his décor back to the matter at hand. “Fuck, sorry about that, man. I’ll get a plumber in here today to find out what the fuck’s going on.” He grins at Eames sheepishly, seems to realize suddenly he’s standing practically naked in his toilet with a total stranger, then offers his hand, “I’m Arthur, by the way, Arthur Leventhal. You’re Tom, right?”

 

They shake. “ _Eames_ ,” Eames nods. “Tom Eames.”

 

“Eames,” Arthur corrects himself. “Wow, man – we’ve seen each other around, but – shitty introduction,” Arthur laughs. “Sorry bout that,” he says again.

 

He walks forward and backs Eames out of the bathroom and into the small front bedroom. Arthur turns his back, grabs a light Japanese robe from his closet and puts it on, lets the towel drop from under it, and that’s when Eames notices two remarkable things: Arthur has a tattoo on his back, a rather lovely tattoo composed solely of calligraphy and ocean swells (and Eames has always been a big fan of tattoos, god knows); and that there’s a wetsuit hanging from a hook on the wall beside the closet’s pocket doors, next to what’s obviously a well-loved surfboard.

 

“So, since I’ve apparently ruined your condo, can I offer you a cup of coffee, Eames?” Arthur smiles at him. Eames notices his hair is dripping, all rucked up in front, no product in it. It’s curly, it’s lovely, it’s a bloody revelation.

 

Eames glances around Arthur’s room. The wall behind his bed is dominated by a huge silkscreen print by Charles Bartlett of Duke Kahanamoku on his longboard, the blues of the thing bluer than blue, the spray of the waves illuminating the surfer’s back, his features dimmed – Christ, it’s lovely, how the man’s not the point of the piece, it’s all wave for Bartlett. Eames has always liked that about his work, always liked that about surfing culture generally, even though he’s lived in Southern California for five years and has never actually attempted it.

 

Mr. Corporate’s a _surfer_ , Eames thinks. Of all things.

 

“Coffee,” Eames says. “Erm, yeah – yeah, that’d be lovely. Let me deal with my bathroom ceiling a moment? And you can get dressed, and – we’ll get that plumber, yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Arthur says happily. “I’ll, um – I’ll make that call, put the kettle on while we wait for the guy to come.”

 

Eames nods, leaves the flat in the strangest of moods. He was all wound up from the destruction of his bathroom, expecting nothing but Yuppie pissiness from a neighbor whose number he thought he had, but – everything was different and lovely and wholly unexpected, the guy’s demeanor and home radiating a kind of deep peace that Eames would never have predicted.

 

He grabs his mop, unearths every towel he has in the house, and starts to deal with the plaster and lathe and _wet_ mess that is his bathroom. And then the shocking blues of that Bartlett piece flash across his mind, followed by the sweet chocolate and cream of Arthur’s hair and skin, and – suddenly, suddenly he doesn’t mind at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Eames is still bent over his tub, slopping soaked towels into a hamper, when he hears the front door squeak open and footsteps come up behind him. He peeks over his shoulder to peer at Arthur, now fully dressed, smiling at him over a french press coffee pot in one hand and a pair of mugs in the other. He’s wearing a dark gray t-shirt with the drawing of a hang-ten hand at the center and SURFING SUCKS, DON’T TRY IT written around it, dark wash jeans, naked feet.

 

Eames is still in nothing but his jammie bottoms, bedhead rampant, arse in the air. Wonderful.

 

“Emergency plumber’s coming in 30. I figured you might need some help,” Arthur says, indicating the mess.

 

“Ta,” Eames replies, and hands him the mop.

 

Many hands make quick work, and Eames’ bathroom is more or less ready for the plumber to tear it apart again after ten minutes. Arthur washes his hands in the sink and smiles his affable, peaceful smile at Eames again and says, “Coffee?”

 

“Yes, thanks.”

  
  
“I’ll set up in the kitchen,” Arthur says.

 

Eames walks slowly out of his bathroom and into his bedroom and tries to look at it through Arthur’s eyes for a moment while he gets dressed in day clothes. It’s always interesting, having that experience where you see something with new eyes, or seeing something totally unexpected, the way he did with Arthur’s flat. It’s – _challenging_ , perhaps.

 

He’s been finding things rather bland and predictable as of late, truth be told. It’s taken a bit of a toll on his work, put him in a rut. He hasn’t worked on a print or put paint on a canvas in a week – unusual for an artist like Eames, who rather thinks of himself as addicted to paint and ink, obsessed with the process of translating inspiration into expression. He’s sorely missed that little jumpstart feeling of seeing something wholly surprising.

 

Eames throws on a pair of soft knee-length shorts and a t-shirt without too much printing ink smeared on it, attempts to get his hair to stay down. He walks out of his bedroom to find Arthur at the other end of his living room, peering into the little second bedroom Eames uses as a studio when he’s not in his actual studio space in Echo Park.

 

“You’re an artist,” Arthur says with something that sounds like amazement. “Like, professionally?” Eames nods. “Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to pry,” Arthur says, backing out of the doorway.

 

Eames shakes his head, “S’fine. Go ahead, look.”

 

Arthur walks gingerly into the small room, careful not to step on anything. It’s not exactly a disaster area, but it isn’t organized, either. Eames watches him as he takes in Eames’ wall of print textures, his stacks of silk screens and wood blocks for cutting, a half-finished canvas on the easel. Then he turns and spies the cartoon villains mural Eames painted on the wall by the door and bursts into a grin.

 

“Oh! Powerpuff Girls!” he says, dimpling. “The bad guys are my favorite.”

 

Eames grabs a mug of the java Arthur left on his coffee table for himself, hands Arthur the other one. “Mmmmm. How am I to take it that the only bit of my work you’ve commented on is a Powerpuff Girls mural I did with spraypaint?”

 

“I’m not an art expert,” Arthur says meekly. “More of a I-know-what-I-like kind of guy.”

 

“You’ve obviously an interest in art. An original Charles Bartlett serigraph isn’t exactly cheap, or easy to come by – you’ve got my favorite pull of that print, by the way,” Eames confides. “I think I spied an Uehara in your hallway, yeah?”

 

Arthur nods, shrugs. “I collect waves,” he says. “That’s what I go for. I have a couple Hokusais, an Eyvind Earle, a Teraoka, a couple early Ethleen Palmers – what?” He says over Eames’ grin and raised eyebrows. “Yeah. Yeah, ok – I like art.”

 

They pause for a minute, just looking at each other over their mugs, and Arthur says, “You ever do anything with waves in it?”

  
  
“I think I’ll start,” Eames replies immediately.

 

++++

 

The plumber is, miraculously, there when he said he’d be. The burst pipe takes him about an hour to fix, and that’s an hour too soon with Arthur in Eames’ kitchen, living room, studio, looking at art and books, the two of them chatting the whole while over coffee. He’s lovely, turns out; a lawyer, yes, but – in fact legal counsel for LACMA.

 

An _art lawyer_ , Eames says to himself. Arthur is a defender of the _arts_. So that’s the reason for the $2000 suits and the hair helmet and the Beemer and –

 

“Wait,” Eames says, a light going off in his head. “Your car. It’s what smells like a chippy around here at the crack of dawn, isn’t it? You turned a bloody convertible BMW into a biodiesel hippiemobile.”

 

Arthur laughs, “Does it really stink? Sorry, I’ve gotten kind of used to the smell,” he shrugs. “Yeah, a friend of mine converts cars. We did a trade for some legal stuff. You know – least impact on the Earth and all. But I kind of have to look the part for work, so.”

 

“I think you’ve achieved that balance quite nicely. I wrongly assumed you were a bit of a twat from the – “

 

“The nice car and the posh clothes and the hair, right?” Eames nods guiltily. “Yeah, I get that. That’s just, you know – my day job.”

 

“How do you like it?”

  
  
“Well,” Arthur says, straightening up. Eames wonders if anyone’s ever even bothered asking him that question before. “I very much like the logic of law, you know? I’m _good_ at it. I keep the museum out of lawsuits and I write a lot of policy and procedural documents, mainly. And I function as a kind of ethics advisor?” He looks up at Eames. “That’s probably really boring, but. I actually like it very much.”

 

“It’s not boring at all,” Eames says. “It’s fascinating. It’s not something I could do in a million years. I’m possibly the least ethical person I know.”

 

Arthur chuckles. “Anyway. When you’ve caught me in my suit at 6 AM, that’s been for the rare meeting with the Director or the Board or something. Really the job affords me exactly what I want – enough money and time to get out to the water, get out on the waves.”

 

“Your art collection. You’re surrounded by waves even in your flat,” Eames notes. “It’s your element.”

 

“I’m even a Water sign,” Arthur says ironically, like he’s pretending to confide a secret. “Though I’m not sure how many prints I have with fish in them or anything.”

 

There’s a pause in the conversation when Arthur says quietly, “You should come with me someday.”

  
  
“To see your art collection?”

  
  
“Oh, that, too, anytime, but – I meant to the beach, the waves. You should come. You’d love it.”

 

Eames sits back on his kitchen chair and regards this suddenly shy Arthur. He’s been to the beach – _a_ beach, Venice Beach – perhaps once per year in the five years he’s lived in LA. Eames is London born and bred, he’s always been a city boy, someone familiar with concrete and high-rises. Not the wildness or the unpredictability or the hugeness of the Pacific. Honestly, he’s not really a fan of sand or salt or swimming or sharks or direct sunlight or _nature_ , either.

 

“Yes,” Eames says. “Yes, please, next time you go – I’d like that, I think,” he lies. It sounds bloody awful, really. But it’s a chance to see Arthur amid waves, and that, Eames thinks – that might really be something.

 

The plumber appears at that moment covered in dried plaster and rust, dragging his tools into the kitchen with him. He hands Arthur a bill that makes his creamy skin visibly blanch, but he recovers quickly enough. Arthur writes a check out to him and he’s on his way, the tragedy of the morning averted by 11 AM, amazing.

 

“How about Friday?” Arthur says, collecting his coffee stuff from Eames’ table.

 

“Hmmm?”

 

“Uh, the beach? How about next Friday?” Arthur asks. “I mean, I’ve already been today, I’m used to being up early and I usually like to hit dawn patrol, but – I’m happy to go later in the day, too. I don’t have to be anywhere Friday.” He pulls out his phone and checks something. “Tide’s high at 11.38 AM on Friday, if you’re free. The water’ll be nice and warm by then, too.”

 

Eames wonders briefly what the hell he’s gotten himself into. And then he looks over Arthur’s shoulder and into his studio and tries to think when was the last time he even turned the light on in there, both literally and figuratively?

 

“Friday,” Eames says with false confidence, exchanging phone numbers with Arthur. “Friday sounds perfect.”


	3. Chapter 3

That same Saturday, Eames pulls a block of wood from his stack. He digs his gravers and chisels out from under a sheaf of Japanese handmade papers that have slumped over the pile of other crap he left them on, and starts to carve.

 

His inspiration is obvious, almost wholesome in its ardor: Arthur is in every sinuous curve, every curl of wood his gouges lift from the block. Eames achieves a kind of fugue state when he’s entirely absorbed by his work – it doesn’t mean he’ll be satisfied by the outcome, of course.

 

But the journey’s pretty fucking delightful.

 

He comes back to himself hours later, the sun starting to dip into the horizon, an ache in his stomach telling him insistently he hasn’t eaten anything yet that day. He looks down at what he’s made – a delicately carved series of eddies and flourishes that ebb and flow into one another, alternately accenting and cutting across the delicate grain of the cream-colored maple he uses. He thinks of the inks he’ll print this with, waves made in the earth tones of Arthur’s skin and eyes and hair, bleeding into the electric blue and eerie green of the Bartlett print at the edges.

 

Eames’ hands have blistered a bit from the non-stop work he’s done on the thing over the past several hours. One of the blisters, on the web of skin between his right thumb and forefinger, has ruptured; there’s a splash of reddish brown that stains the crest of one wave from it.

 

It’ll be the print’s first bit of color.

 

He carefully inks the thing and lays it down on a piece of Hosho paper so thick and soft it’s like cloth, burnishes it, and picks the first stage of the print up for inspection. And there it is, that little burst of limpid, lymphic red to start his sea roiling.

 

++++

 

The inking and burnishing takes him another hour and a half before he’s completely satisfied with the end result. The waves are a stunning combination of the tonal delicacy of early Edo stuff, combined with the rustic robustness of 20th century Arts and Crafts graphic line. It’s strong and elegant at the same time, both creamy and electric, filled with energy.

 

He silently pins the print to Arthur’s door that evening, then heads out with Cheri and Si for a night of celebratory debauchery.

 

Arthur’s one-word text comes at 5:13 AM the following morning, as Eames is headed home in the transparent dawn light: _yes_.


	4. Chapter 4

They both let what’s building stew between them for the next week, a delicious slow burn that’s punctuated by the occasional text message, nothing more. Eames estimates he rubs one out a minimum of twice a day – a marathon run for a man of 35, he snarks at himself. Eames hasn’t been this hot for someone since he was in his late teens; he’s loving it, that sense of anticipation, suspension.

 

He finishes the canvas that’s been sitting on the easel for a month, cuts one new woodblock a day. He draws sketches of Arthur in the corners of deli napkins, feeling strangely prolific, fecund; his cup runs over, like the want he feels for Arthur is fueling his creative urges. He wonders how often Arthur’s been getting himself off.

 

Their texts are brief, somewhat teasing, mainly sweet: _passed a Thiebaud in the lobby of the director’s office. I dunno, something about the palette, reminded me of you._

 

To which Eames responded: _flattery will get you **everywhere** , darling_

 

And Arthur said: _you’re just trying to get into my pants because you think i can get one of your (fantastic) prints into lacma_

 

And Eames retorted: _I already have a print at lacma. And that’s hardly the main reason I want in your pants_

 

Arthur apparently couldn’t come up with anything in response to that, which made Eames chuckle.

 

He reminds himself it’s only Tuesday yet, anxiety and anticipation for the end of the week building in the pit of his stomach. Best not to get too cocky; the joke might be on him, come Friday. He’s in top shape, as ever – nicely muscled and strong, mainly from hours of dancing and the luck of good genetics, since his diet consists largely of beer and take away from the Indian place down the block. But the inherent balance and poise he imagines one might need to stand on a surfboard? He’s worried about whether or not he has that, worried about what Arthur is going to think when he falls off the board again and again and again.

 

And then his alarm goes off at 9 on Friday morning, his phone flashing the reminder HERMOSA BEACH ARTHUR across the screen – as if he hasn’t been thinking about this moment all week. Eames specifically set it so that he only had an hour to himself before he said he’d meet Arthur in the parking lot at his car. As he washes down a bagel with some coffee, he starts wishing he’d given himself only a half hour. Normally cool and collected when the possibility of sex is at hand, Eames’ disloyal heart has been lurching alarmingly every time the thought of Arthur enters his head.

 

He watches the clock in his kitchen tick up to their 10 AM meeting time at a pace that manages to be both too fast and too slow, entirely excruciating. At 10, he peeks through the blinds in his studio at the condo’s tiny parking lot, spies Arthur in a t-shirt and board shorts wrestling a pair of surfboards and a duffle bag into the back seat of his convertible.

 

The man’s legs – oh, Arthur’s legs, lightly furred and leanly muscled. They make Eames _drool_. He can imagine them wrapped tightly around his hips, his hands grasping the man’s perfect round ass cheeks –

 

Eames gathers his courage, grabs his bag, and goes out to where Arthur awaits him.

 

++++

 

They chat amiably and fluidly the whole way to Hermosa Beach, the California sun shining down on them through the open roof of the convertible as they drive down the 405. Arthur talks easily and intelligently about anything, it seems – art, science, politics, music. He pops a CD with the image of an imaginary city skyline hand drawn on the front into the car’s stereo and the first loud, hinky notes of the Talking Heads’ _Remain In Light_ record blare from the speakers.

 

“Fuck, I love this album,” Eames says. Arthur smiles his sweet smile at him.

 

“That’s good, that’s good – if you didn’t love this album, we couldn’t be friends,” he says.

 

“Mmmm. Any other deal-breakers I should know about ahead of time?”

 

Arthur sucks in air through his teeth, pretending to seriously consider this. “Kate Bush’s _Hounds of Love_. Eno’s _Here Come the Warm Jets_. Early Wire. Anything Numan.”

 

“Ah, we like post-punk, do we?”

 

“We really, _really_ do.”

 

“Good taste,” Eames replies quietly, watching the wind ruffle Arthur’s dark hair.

 

++++

 

When Arthur hops out of the car and instantly divests himself of his shirt, parking the BMW at the beach becomes Eames’ favorite point of the day thus far. He pulls the thin fabric over his head in a single fluid motion, exposing the sinuous line of his compactly muscled torso.

 

Eames’ eyes flit from abs to nipples to lats to ink, and he lets them linger there a moment as Arthur begins to religiously sunblock himself in front of God and everyone, right there in the carpark. He glimmers with oil. Eames wants to bend him over the trunk of the Beemer, but - Arthur’s tattoo has him a bit mesmerized.

 

The tattoo says, amid raucous Hokusai waves and tiny brave sparrows,

 

_all the love that you’ve given me_

_it helps me see_

_what’s right_.

 

“What’s that mean?” Eames blurts. Arthur looks up from his ministrations confused. “Your tattoo, what’s it mean to you?”

 

Arthur smiles widely at him. “Just wait,” he says. “Wait till you get out in the water, get out on the waves. You’ll see.” He chucks the bottle of sunblock over the car to Eames, says, “You’re gonna want to use a whole lot of that.”

 

He pulls the boards and their gear out of the car while Eames lubes up, and then they pad down to the sparsely populated beach together. Everyone they run into seems to be someone Arthur knows by name – he flashes the Shaka at a pair of absurdly beautiful Native Hawai’ian women as they return to shore, fist-bumps and hugs an older white bloke with short blonde dreads named Eric.

 

Arthur shows him how to wax his board on the shore, peppering his conversation with surfing anatomy vocabulary – _deck_ , _rocker_ , _rails_ ; Eames learns he’s about to get on a longboard, and that Arthur’s smaller board is called a hybrid. He’s watching Arthur’s hands move over the board with the block of wax in meditative strokes when he says quietly, “When you get out there, on the waves? Try to just be there with them, you know?”

 

“I don’t know,” Eames admits. “Explain it to me?”

 

He watches Arthur look out over the incomprehensible vast blueness of the Pacific, his eyes skimming the surface of the water. “It’s not – “ Arthur starts. He shakes his head, then looks at Eames openly. “We like each other, right?” He asks, bluntly.

 

“Yes,” Eames replies.

 

“Sort of like how we’re starting to know each other, you’re just going out today to start to get to know the water, right?” Eames is baffled by this, has no idea where Arthur’s going with it. “There’s no competition involved, no expectations or anything on my end, ok? No ego. We’re leaving any ego on the shore.”

 

At Eames’ blank look he continues, “I’m trying to say - I didn’t bring you out here because I want you to impress me with your surfing prowess on you first go, ok? If you even get up on the board for more than a second this first time out, I’ll be impressed; and if you wanna come back out with me again, I’ll probably be blown away,” he says. “I brought you out here because I think, from looking at some of your art, that maybe you’ll be able to see what I can see when we’re on the water, and that’s interesting. That interests me.”  
  
“What do you see?” Eames asks. He’s insanely relieved that Arthur doesn’t expect him to be the next Duke, but his anxiety about his lack of skill has been replaced by this notion that he’s supposed to be looking for something now.

 

Arthur’s hands stop their stroking on the deck of the board; he looks out at the waves searchingly. “I see the pull of the Moon on the blood in our veins,” he says seriously. “The pulse of our heartbeats, the contractions during a birth, the flow of breath entering and leaving our lungs, the rhythm of making love.” He stops, then says quietly over the roar of the surf, “I see the entire fucking cosmos, man.”

 

He looks at Eames blankly for a moment. Eames can feel it in the soft sea air between them that Arthur’s waiting, perhaps to see if Eames will make a joke at his expense, or smirk, or look away.

 

He doesn’t. Instead he says, “Show me.”

 

They walk their boards into the water until it’s waist-deep, then lay belly-down on them and paddle out into the sea. Eames tries to concentrate on the gentle surge of the swells around him, pushing him and pulling him in their ancient meter. He lets himself be lulled by the sensation.

 

He tries to incorporate that movement into what Arthur’s said, synch it somehow with the cadence of the waves, the sound of the blood thrumming in his ears as his arms paddle the board out to sea. Eames _has_ had moments where he’s felt genuine love for humanity, for the universe, and where he’s felt that love be returned; and those moments seem to have been a kind of catalyst for some of his best work. But he hasn’t felt them stir in his chest recently, not in months.

 

Not until now.

 

They get far enough out and Arthur stops. He looks over at Arthur sitting on his board, buffeted by gentle waves. There are droplets of sea water adorning his shoulders like little jewels as he idly traces the tips of his fingers through the ocean’s surface.

 

Eames has never seen someone so in his element before, he thinks. Arthur could be a fish, or a merman, or some kind of selkie, or the water itself, but – he’s one with it, that’s the truth.

 

Eames does manage to get up on the board a few times, a handful of seconds total. It’s like the equivalent of hours and hours of dancing, exhausting, exhilarating; the muscles around his hip bones have never had such a workout in their entire lives. He watches Arthur ride a couple of waves just relaxing from the longboard. It’s so graceful, literally and figuratively, he thinks – graceful in the sense that Arthur glides on the surface of the sea exactly like he’s an extension of the waves, arms outstretched above the board, gleaming in the sun; and graceful in that he appears filled with a kind of Grace, filled with the love shown to him by the sea.

 

Eames adjusts the silver Holy Virgin medallion his mother gave him years ago around his neck and smiles to himself. It’s a French antique from the 20s, all silver lily tendrils surrounding her within a pool of enamel that’s a deep, clear sapphire blue. He doesn’t think he’s ever understood the symbolism of the piece better than he does right now.

 

Arthur rides up close to Eames, splashes him with the back of the board and then purposely falls into the waves. He’s paddled over to Eames and is sitting on his board in a matter of seconds, quiet, just glancing contentedly between Eames and the sea.

 

“You’re shooting me some awful sweet looks from over there,” Arthur says with a wry grin a moment later, looking at him from the corner of his eye, breaking Eames’ reverie.

 

“I’m having some awful sweet thoughts,” Eames replies sincerely, and Arthur’s face crinkles in a genuine smile.

 

He paddles right next to Eames in a couple swift, elegant strokes of his lean legs (and Eames swears for a moment he sees scales on them, deep irridescent chocolate brown shot through with electric blue, like he’s some cthonic god), gently grabs Eames by the jaw and kisses him. Lightly at first, and then deeper, deep and deeply giving; kisses that Eames can’t help but notice are in time with the swells of the ocean, the in and out surge and roll of the unending blue surrounding them.

 

“Christ,” Eames says when their kiss breaks, “Christ, this is lovely.”

 

Arthur sits back on his board a little bit and looks around him, surveying the waves. “It is. It’s the best,” he says. He looks back over at Eames, “And you did great. But we should probably get you back to the beach. I’m worried you’re gonna burn, white boy.”

 

They paddle serenely back to the shore, no rush, and walk up the beach with their boards tucked under their arms to Arthur’s car and head home.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

 

One evening soon after, Arthur invites Eames up to his condo for supper. Over lamb tagine and couscous, he shows Eames his wave collection - Arthur has an incredible Robert Longo silkscreen and Shepard Fairey’s recent ocean and surf-themed series in addition to the several artists he’d mentioned to Eames previously. He also shows Eames the work of at least a couple dozen artists, both turn of the twentieth century and contemporary, Japanese and Western, most of whom are entirely new to Eames.   
  
“Your flat’s like a tiny maritime museum,” Eames tells him.

 

And then Arthur hands him an object the likes of which Eames has never seen, never even imagined. It’s flat, about the size of the top of a small table, more or less square in shape, and composed of a series of curved and straight sticks delicately lashed together at their junctures and occasionally punctuated by a shiny white cowrie shell. It’s blowing Eames’ mind.  
  
“This,” Eames says. “This is phenomenal.” He holds the thing in his hands while Arthur sips on a beer, watching. “What _is_ this?”

 

“That’s a wave map,” Arthur says.  
  
“How? What? _How_?” Eames says, marveling at the thing; it’s extremely well made and sturdy for something composed, essentially, of twigs and shell. “Did you make this?”

 

“Nope.” Arthur, of course, knows all about the Micronesian tradition of making current charts in the Marshall Islands. He demonstrates to Eames how a _meddo_ works, pointing out the different categories of wave in the chart – swells and counterswells and their weaker refractions, tells him about how the Marshallese were the first people to ever map such a thing.

 

He stands back and gives Eames a pleased smile at the awe with which this information is being processed. Arthur quietly putters around the condo, backing off and letting Eames study the thing. Little does he know the intense ripple effect the object has caused in Eames’ head.

 

“I hope I’m not being too forward here, but - may I borrow this?” Eames asks.

 

“For inspiration?” Arthur guesses.  
  
“Precisely, yes.”  
  
“Please.”  
  
They make out on Arthur’s couch for a while after that. Eames gets to be on the receiving end of several more of those insanely deep, long kisses Arthur’s uniquely capable of. Kisses that are practically tidal in nature. Arthur hasn’t pushed him yet for anything further, which has been - _interesting_. He’s followed Arthur’s lead there; he normally wouldn’t.

 

 _Los Angeles_ , Eames reflects a little later, walking down the stairs back to his flat with the wave map in his hands and a hard-on tenting his pants. Los Angeles is chock-a-block with fruits, nuts, and flakes – enough for a cereal bowl full every morning, God knows. And Arthur, as cosmically-inclined a sand-hugging wave worshipper as he may be – Arthur isn’t one of them.

 

Arthur is logical and sharp and content and sweet and _slow_ , all at the same time. Arthur is perhaps the nicest thing to have happened to Eames in his five years in L.A.

 

++++

 

He goes back to the waves, the real waves, with Arthur twice again the following week – once at dawn, even - Arthur having said he’d be blown away if Eames did so. Eames can admit to himself by this point that, frankly, he’s pretty thrilled by the idea of impressing Arthur. The workout the waves give him is nothing short of fantastic, yet another bonus.

 

The cherry on the cake, however, is the effect their outings have had on his artwork. A light’s been switched on in Eames’ head since seeing the Marshallese wave map. He’s been seeing a lot of Arthur during the last several days. When the man’s not around, though, Eames is working steadily on his next series of paintings.

 

He makes a miniature model of the thing he wants to create over the next few days when Arthur’s at work or on the water. Eames studies the original object Arthur lent him closely, figures out how to steam and gently bend wood using his tea kettle, how to fix a strong reef knot with a shred of waxed linen. Like the wave map, Eames’ piece composed of a series of strong, flat sticks lashed together at their meeting points. It’s more rhombus-shaped than the original, though, with a series of cleverly made parallel arches at one corner.

 

Eames buys a sheet of thin, transparent Japanese paper almost the consistency of Tyvek from the art supply store. On this, he draws waves and eddies, canoe and nautilus shapes in encaustic and oil stick, overwhelmingly in electric blues and phthalo greens. He attaches the page to the back of the map structure and holds it up to the light of his window, and – yes.

 

Yes, this is what he means. This is what he wants to say.

 

When he sees Arthur that night, Eames makes a gift of the little model to him.

 

Arthur’s silent for a while, just looking intently at the object, tracing every line and curve in it with his finger. And then walks Eames backwards to his bed and pushes him down onto it, kissing him fiercely.

 

It isn’t until Eames is on his back on the mattress, watching Arthur strip off his shirt, that he realizes what’s changed about the room. The Bartlett print is gone, replaced above Arthur’s bed by the print Eames made for him two weeks ago. Eames grins, tickled by the way he’s apparently managed to insinuate himself into Arthur’s head.

 

“You,” Arthur says, divesting Eames of his pants and shorts.

 

“Me,” Eames echoes. They’re both totally naked on Arthur’s soft bed, a mild breeze blowing in through his open window. Something in the room smells like coconut, a scent Eames only ever associates with the beach.

 

“You are a very, very nice boy,” Arthur continues. He straddles Eames, smiles down at him, stretches Eames’ thick arms above his head and pins them there by his wrists, kisses his mouth, his neck. Inhales deeply at his underarms.

 

“I _am_ a nice boy,” Eames agrees. “And a very passable artist.” Arthur starts to slowly grind down onto him, his hips surging against Eames’, their cocks gliding and slipping against one another. And suddenly all Eames can really do arch into up into him, his arms still pinned, to increase how much of him is in direct contact with Arthur.

 

He wraps his legs around Arthur’s ass and yields to the relentlessly slow, fluid rhythm Arthur grants him. Watching Arthur’s face above him, Eames’ orgasm swells, crests, and crashes over him. He falls asleep listening to the muted city sounds of Silver Lake drifting up from the sidewalk below, Arthur a warm, gentle weight at his side.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, DONE! Finally done. Thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos on this story - they are much appreciated. If you're at all interested in seeing an object that kind of-sort of looks like the things I imagine Eames producing, please google JW Stewart's work, particularly the piece called Gibbous. Love, Sordide.

6.

 

_Ten months later._

 

“Where does he want this piece? Over here? That enough light?” Annie, the gallery owner, asks. She’s studying Eames’ largest piece in the show, an already purchased multi-media behemoth entitled _Tidal_. It’s the piece based on the first little maquette he made for Arthur, so many months ago. “What do you think, Arthur?”

 

Arthur thinks he’ll never cease to find being asked these questions strange and amusing. He’s been protesting that he’s no artist for months now (“I’m just a lawyer. _Seriously_ ,”) but Eames’ arty associates still insist on treating him like he knows anything about how to set up a gallery show, so – he usually plays along. This is what you get, he suspects, when the hot contemporary artist in Los Angeles drops a reference to you as his fucking _muse_ in the press.

 

He looks over at Eames, pacing on the other side of the huge warehouse space in Hollywood, still on the phone trying to iron out some aspect of getting one of his pieces back to L.A. from New York in time for the opening. Arthur watches Eames rub his hand over his tired, but happy, face.

 

Eames has been burning the midnight oil, working eighteen-hour days on these paintings the past few weeks - upstairs, in Arthur’s old condo, since they converted it for use as mainly studio space. Arthur had reasoned the light was better on the second floor for painting last month, that there was no logical reason for Eames to keep paying rent on the studio in Echo Park when they had all this shared space between them, and–

 

Eames had smiled gently and kissed him, spent the rest of the day moving all of Arthur’s clothes into the closet in their bedroom.

 

“I think that’s good, but it needs to be closer to the light source behind it, like this.” Arthur helps Annie shift the artwork, then steps back and takes another look. “The blues pop more this way.”

 

“This is kind of your special piece,” Annie says knowingly, regarding the glowing waves behind the delicate trellis of lines and arches. “You gonna be sad to see it leave?”

 

“Nah,” Arthur says, thinking of where the maquette hangs right by their bed in the little niche Eames made for it.   
  
Eames rings off and walks over to where Arthur is standing, winds his arms around him and hooks his chin over his shoulder, starts talking to Annie about some aspect of the opening next weekend. He doesn’t notice the way Arthur shifts a bit under his caress, taking the weight off the fresh tattoo he’s just come from having inked onto his back.

 

Beneath the light gauze bandage on his side rests the image of currents and swirls in electric blue supported and upheld by a delicate frame of brown bands and curves that ebb and flow, swell and fluctuate, with the breath of their bearer.


End file.
